I mean, that was valid. I was a fan of bubble baths too. I didn’t know what the tub looked like in his bedroom, but theone in the bedroom I’d chosen was completely ridiculous. I could easily have tub sex with three giant demons in that thing and it wasn’t even the master suite.
“Well, I personally like all your servants, but they have really great taste in bath products too.”
“Please tell me Lizette is still in business and that’s who they’ve been buying from. Lizette’soriginalrecipes, not some corporate version that’s been fucked with.”
Nero just grinned.
“Lizette is still running her shop and telling upper demons to get fucked when they want to buy her recipes.”
“Good for her. That demon is a national treasure. If you need me for the next hour, you actually don’t. Sydney, I want to knoweverythingabout your life and we need to figure out who did all this, but I’d like to do all that when I’m not covered in grime and matted hair.”
Lucifer was looking at me like he thought I was going to be upset he wanted to take an hour for himself right after we just met. Honestly, if he needed to take longer, I completely got it. He’d been throughwaymore shit than I had. I just thought my father checked out, but I had a great Mom.
Lucifer lost one child. He knew I was out there the entire time he was being held prisoner in shitty conditions and he couldn’t do anything to protect me. It was an added layer of torture from the starvation and filth.
“I’m immortal now. We have all the time in the world to catch up. No one knows you’re here except the person who was keeping you in that cage. The first place they are going to come is here, so that should answer who took you. You probably needloadsof therapy after what you went through, but if what you need is a bath right now, then you should do that and take as long as you need.”
“She’s right,” Lilith said. “Let me help you. I can’t fix what you went through or that someone murdered our son, but I can fix your hair and beard. Come on.”
I needed to dosomething.I was still processing finding my father. Even dirty and traumatized, he’d been amazing so far. He was even nice to my demons and didn’t do that girl dad thing and threaten to smite them. I’d also randomly tapped into my Hellfire. It made me feel weird, tingly, and sweaty.
“Kujo cooked, so we’re on dish duty. I’ll wash, one of you dries, and the other puts them away. Kujo, you just sit there and look fuckable since you fed us.”
Kujo just smirked and did that sexy thing men do where they reach behind them and pull their shirt off with one hand. He lounged at the island and smoldered at me. Celix and Nero just shrugged and pulled their shirts off too.
“Uh, why are we all shirtless when the devil is in the house?”
Nero just beamed at me.
“We’re all massive fans of Wrathhog. Torture can be fun sometimes. Especially if you aren’t the soul of a shitty person and it ends with orgasms.”
“Tease,” I said, using the kitchen towel like a weapon on Nero’s ass.
“We believe him about Mammon?” Celix asked.
“Fuck no,” I snorted. “Getting your ass beat by a bunch of women is a villain origin story if I ever heard one. Abaddon and Satan don’t make sense.”
“The only reason we think it can’t be Satan is because my family attacked his place with Wrathhog there and we don’t think he would hurt his own kid. I thought that too but that could be exactly why itishim. He doesn’t know shit about me or how I was raised. Furies are upper demons and my family was practically royalty. There are people in Hell who are fucked enough to think I should have been grateful they wanted meback since I’m just a Cambion. Hecouldhave thought it never would have come to a fight because I would have willingly gone with them.”
Well, fuck. That also made sense. None of these people were human and didn’t spend time around them. There were a lot of things we thought similarly about and then other things that were just so fucked up I couldn’t imagine how anyone came up with that in the first place.
I hadn’t been here long, but Kujo was right. He was a powerful demon in his own right and there were people here who shit on him because his father was human. No one was doing that with me and I had human DNA too. It was stupid.
“Sorry, anyone who said anything like that around me is getting dick or vag punches. And you’re right. Satan wanted us at his house instead of Lucifer’s. He said it was because he wanted to check Lucifer’s place, but what if it was to throw us off?”
“Yeah, but what’s his motive?” Nero asked. “His public stance is that he agrees with Abaddon. The Fallen should step back and let demons run Hell. And if Mammon, Abaddon, and Satan were the ones taking care of Lucifer when he was drinking himself into oblivion and it can only be one of them because of the passages, why didn’t they get rid of him when he made it easy for them?”
“There’s a piece we are missing,” Celix said. “Kir was murdered thousands of years ago. The rest of Hell knew it hit Lucifer hard, but apparently not as bad as it actually was. Why did that much time elapse?”
“Listen, I don’t want to trigger Lucifer or Lilith since it would be shitty to ask, but what’s the story with Kir?”
There was probably a massive clue with Kir’s murder and the best person to ask was his parents, but I wasn’t going to do that because it was shitty. Asking one of the Fallen would probablywork, but I didn’t trust them. I couldn’t even trust the ones I liked.
“It’s taught that Lucifer had taken Kir to the mortal realm multiple times, but he wanted to go by himself. He didn’t want any angels with him and was bringing his demon lover. When he didn’t check in, Lucifer went to the mortal realm. He found Kir and his lover crucified since that was a thing then. It would have been impossible for humans to do that to them.”
“Aren’t angels a little more flaming swords and smitey?”
“No,” Lilith said. “Only archangels and Cherubim have flaming swords. Kir was beaten to a pulp and stabbed, but not with a sword like that. Thank you for not asking Lucifer this and considering my feelings, but I’m in a place where I can talk about it.
